This is the first presidential election to move at the speed of the Internet. After years of dismissing bloggers as peanut galleryists in pajamas, every major media outlet is requiring reporters to provide a daily play-by-play at its in-house blog. (Me? Guilty as charged.) Meaning we’re now stuck with a 1,440-minute news cycle. In theory, that’s dandy (no hiding); in practice, it totally skews the signal-to-noise ratio. While the demand for campaign news has exploded, the supply hasn’t. (Did more really “happen” in 2007 than 2003, or 1983, or 1923?) To fill the void, reporters resort to the tiny blips, slips and digits that constitute the “horse race.” And candidates, desperate for attention, provide the grist.
No wonder you’re mad. Three weeks after Obama’s appearance in Manchester, Carolyn Washburn, editor of The Des Moines Register, launched her newspaper’s Republican debate by saying, “We’re going to focus on issues Iowans say they still want to know more about.” When the roster didn’t include Iraq or immigration, the pundits pounced. “The worst debate in Western history,” said Charles Krauthammer. And yet Washburn delivered: taxes, education, global warming and trade. There were no snowmen, no slapfests. The 1,440/7 media emerged empty-handed. Iowans emerged informed. Who did a better job? We report. You decide.
